Dwayne Kelly (FCRH ’09) has been chosen as one of approximately 50 students nationwide to receive the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation 2010
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| Dwayne Kelly, FCRH ’09 |
Graduate Scholarship.
The $50,000 scholarship will help Kelly, a native of Jamaica who majored in urban studies, pursue his dream of studying immigration law.
The award was open to students who had previously won a Jack Kent Cooke Transfer Undergraduate Scholarship—which Kelly received in 2006 while enrolled at Westchester Community College. That award made it possible for Kelly to attend and graduate from Fordham.
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s Graduate Scholarship Program is designed to help talented students with demonstrated financial need to pursue graduate or professional study. All recipients must have maintained a 3.5 GPA and have shown leadership ability and concern for public service.
Kelly, who was raised in the Bronx and who does community service with a local religious organization, said he hopes to become a “voice for the voiceless men and women who feel hopeless about their circumstances” in the United States.
“A legal education would equip me adequately to tackle the kind of injustices that immigrants suffer as a result of their lack of legal status,” Kelly said.
“As one of Dwayne’s teachers, I was delighted—but not surprised—to learn that this impressive graduate of Fordham College at Rose Hill won the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship,” said John Kezel, Ph.D., director of the University’s St. Edmund Campion Institute for the Advancement of Academic Excellence.
“Soon after he transferred to Fordham, Dwayne expressed his interest in the Campion Institute, especially our Matteo Ricci Summer Fellowships, but always with his eyes on the prize—obtaining a JKC scholarship so he could pursue a professional degree.”
The first-generation student, who said he never expected he’d get to attend college, made the dean’s list at Fordham for three consecutive years. He minored in philosophy.
